Reid isn’t done with the music industry, either. Ars has learned some new details about Reid’s debut novel, Year Zero. Due out in July, Year Zero is a science fiction novel set in a galaxy that’s rather nearby. Specifically, it’s set on a cute (but quite possibly doomed) planet called Earth, where litigious entertainment industry lawyers nearly ruin human civilization. So as you can see, this is clearly fiction. Not a Swiftian commentary on our society, no sir.

And there's good news for those of you who loathe the written word, as we've just learned that Daily Show Resident Expert (and human-shaped PC from the Mac commercials) John Hodgman will be reading the book’s audio edition. At first I was rather surprised to hear this, because Hodgman is a deranged, barefoot millionaire whose hobbies include hurling 5-hour energy drinks and mayonnaise at unsuspecting theater goers. (As our Chicagoland readers can discover for themselves by attending his Chicago show this Sunday. He’s in the region this week, so check out his schedule. I saw him earlier in LA, and it was brilliant.) So I e-mailed him some questions about his involvement.

Ars Technica: Mr. Hodgman, why is there no extant technology—indeed, not even your own particular inventions—that can read and record this work for you, surpassing both your soothing but organically limited voice, and your stamina?

John Hodgman: Of course there are many programs now that can read electronic books aloud to those who are impaired or simply too lazy to read, but none of them are quite so robotic and soulless as I am. Despite every possible intervention, they still sound too human, too frail, and too questioning to compete with the sheer authority of my own-HAL-like rendition. Also, when the aliens do discover they owe us unimaginable sums in back royalties, I want to get my cut.

Ars: A second question, if I may: do you anticipate needing to trim back the mustache to performance/athletic levels of trim, for the sake of the performance? And are you being properly compensated for such a sacrifice?

JH: The benefit of a mustache is that it acts as a natural pop filter. In recording terms, this is a shielding device used to decrease the "popping" sound of aspirated plosives and to protect the mic from saliva. If I did not have this mustache, I would have to wear a piece of foam rubber under my nose like a normal voice artist. And I would have to wring out foam rubber spit valve every 15 minutes. Mustaches can safely hold saliva for days.

You read it here first.

We also went straight to the author himself to get the lowdown on the book. Since Reid is mainly known for being an entrepreneur (having started the company that built the Rhapsody music service) I had to ask him if it was true that his book was really part of a Faustian bargain, whereby he gains literacy and a humorous libretto in exchange for his soul—a small price to pay for success these days.

“A couple years back, my wife and I were traveling through Colombia for New Year's Eve,” Reid replied, with enough earnestness that I figure this isn’t code for a coke-laden LA New Year’s Eve Party. “Toward the end of the trip she got sick. We were at the end of our trip and had read all of our books. So I started writing what became the prologue of Year Zero, and would read the new parts to my wife whenever she woke up. By the time we got home, we were both having fun with this, so I kept it up. Next thing I knew, eighteen months had passed, and I had a finished manuscript.”

That reply didn't get me closer to the bottom of any conspiracy, so I tried the friendly tack.

“Clearly this is supposed to be a fun book,” I said. “Aliens are usually fun when they're not anally probing you. How did you hit on this ridiculous idea involving aliens?”

“The aliens in the books that I read as a kid were all obnoxiously superior to us in every imaginable way," Reid replied. "To the extent that they had any interest in us, it was due to something completely unrelated to human society. They wanted our planet. They wanted our phosphates. They wanted our pituitary glands.

"This always bugged me. Just once, I wanted aliens who thought we were awesome. Galaxy Quest whetted my appetite—but those aliens thought we were awesome by mistake. The trick, of course, is figuring out how primitives like us could possibly awe a galaxy-hopping civilization. Then it hit me—any aliens who listen to both sides of Led Zeppelin IV won't just think we were awesome. They'll know it.”

Trying to get the mini-interview back on track, I asked Reid if there was a serious message to the book, or if it was all just fun and games. After all, Copyright Math is rather serious when you get to the core of it.

“First, Led Zeppelin IV kicks ass (particularly 'When the Levee Breaks.') Secondly, while it's all tied up in a playful storyline, I do make some serious points about the insanity of certain copyright laws, as well as the corrupting influence that media lobbyists can have on Washington."

Reid knows all too well the corrupting influence of deep-pocketed players who see new technologies in terms of the old. But sometimes what stands in the way of progress is a willingness to experiment, to break from “shooting the proscenium arch,” as Reid would say.

Back in 1997, Reid wrote about how all new media technologies are originally—and rather uncreatively—put to use serving older technologies. When movie cameras were first invented, early cinematographers were at a loss with how to make use of them. It’s no surprise that one of the first uses was to record a play, a kind of "early-gen media technology." Likewise, the first TV news anchors read the news to us on screen, just as their radio counterparts had done before—newspaper in hand, speaking into a microphone materializing at the end of a speaker cone. When asked if reading a book into a microphone isn’t just another form of shooting the proscenium arch, Reid conceded that it could be, adding, “but not if its Hodgman.”

Specifically, it’s set on a cute (but quite possibly doomed) planet called Earth, where litigious entertainment industry lawyers nearly ruin human civilization. So as you can see, this is clearly fiction.

Could be humourous, if done right (all too often Aliens visiting earth for non-violent reasons, turn out to be underwhelming, IMRE)Also reminds me of a few Bllom County strips where Opus gets in a time machine and visits America as run by Steve Dallas-style lawyers.

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.